The Spotted Southerner, which at 262 years old is one of the oldest trees in the Netherlands, was badly damaged by a fire last week. The rescue operation for the monumental Eindhoven plane tree started on Thursday.
When Ton Stokwielder (55) heard that the Spotted Southerner had caught fire, he could only think of one thing: we have to save that monumental plane tree. It couldn’t be the case that three hot teens put an end to the life of the 28-meter-high, 262-year-old tree.
The tree still has green leaves. The ascending sap flow from the roots is therefore still intact, and that gives hope. Whether the descending sap flow, which is supposed to provide the roots with nutrition, will survive, is the big question.
Seven tree experts and gardeners – also from Belgium and Switzerland – came to Stokwielder’s aid and performed CPR on Thursday from 6 am to 9.30 pm. They dug out the four hundred square meter root system. A cocktail of bits of leaf and compost should bring the roots of the tree back to life. Whether this will be successful will only become apparent in two years’ time, in the summer of 2024, when the roots have run out of their stored food supply.
Hundred years, thousand years
The old plane tree, which has a circumference of almost 5 meters, came on Stokwielder’s radar in 2009 when he, as a tree manager (don’t say ‘caretaker’, because ‘a tree is not the neighbor’s dog’) made a plan for the green domain Wasven (in Tongelre) where the tree is. He found the platanus x hispanica – a cross between different types of plane trees that was planted at the end of the 18th century to impress – just hidden in the bushes. Almost hidden away.
The lack of old trees in the Netherlands had been a frustration of his for years. ‘Why are we already happy in the Netherlands when a tree becomes a hundred years old, while in England there are trees with a circumference of 18 meters?’ He had hardly thought possible that such old trees as the Spotted Southerner exist in the Netherlands without being noticed.
The Eindhoven plane thus sowed ‘the seed’ for the Wereldboom Foundation, with which Stokwielder and a few kindred spirits are committed to ensuring that Dutch trees can be at least a thousand years old. Old trees exude enormous energy, says Stokwielder. ‘Trees are a kind of charging point. A place where you can come to yourself and where you get fresh energy to continue the struggle of life.’
In order to allow the plane tree to reach full maturity, surrounding, younger trees were removed years ago. Some tree lovers have problems with such measures, but they are wrong, says Stokwielder. ‘With its leaf mass, a thousand-year-old tree has more impact on the microclimate in the soil than ten trees that are only decades old.’
The tree has become a popular ‘wedding and mourning location’. Local resident Kees van Grevenbroek, who has known the tree since 1988, writes about the tree as a ‘patron’ in the neighborhood newspaper. The heart-shaped lawn next to the tree is one of Eindhoven’s ‘happy spots’, ‘the tree sucks people in as it were’.
Deck on fire
To protect the roots of the tree from the weight of the many visitors, a deck was placed. It is precisely this that the plane tree can tragically become fatal. The composite from which the planks are made propelled the fire to the crown of the tree, something burning wood would never have been able to do. Police are still investigating how the deck caught fire, after three boys, aged 16 and 18, were arrested this week.
The rescue operation may seem like a hopeless mission, but it is not, says Joep van Bergeijk, regional coordinator Brabant at the Boomstichting. According to him, a plane tree is a tough tree species that can take a lot. “An oak would have been dead long ago.”
It is only a less good sign, says Van Bergeijk, that the tree has burned all around. But he takes heart from the fact that the 262-year-old plane tree is a youngster of its kind. “They can live up to 2,000 years, but they have to survive a fire like this every now and then.”